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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/25846030">pride in his work</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/greeny1710/pseuds/greeny1710'>greeny1710</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Alternate Works of Chaotic Trio [6]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Formula 1 RPF</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Character Study, Fluff, M/M, Sibling Bonding, The Chaos Family do appear but they're not so prevalent, The Great British Sewing Bee, The sewing competition AU that no one asked for but my mum, This is basically just Charles freaking out about fashion for 4.5k words, fashion - Freeform</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-08-11</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-08-11</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-05 05:14:01</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>4,483</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/25846030</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/greeny1710/pseuds/greeny1710</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Charles is in the final of a sewing competition and Max is his model</p>
<p>Charles was just thankful that it was being recorded for the BBC so that Max couldn't stab him with a needle</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Charles Leclerc &amp; Max Verstappen</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Alternate Works of Chaotic Trio [6]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/1772158</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>30</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>106</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>pride in his work</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>as said in the tags, no one asked for this other than my mum. my mum used to be a fashion designer (specifically wedding dresses but she also designed clothes for Cher at one point so who the fuck knows anymore) and she said to me 'you should do a thingy about Charles doing the sewing bee' and so mama, this ones for u because you're the best xx</p>
<p>sewing bee is a competition on BBC, in which ten amateur sewers come together and sewing competitively to be crowned Britain's best home sewer</p>
<p>honestly if you can find a way to watch it, watch sewing bee, it's great. I love it (mainly bc my mum sits and critiques all the designs lmao)</p>
<p>enjoy this :)</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <i>Eighteen year old Charles is this year’s youngest sewer. </i>
</p>
<p>
  <i>He has been sewing since he was eleven years old after developing a taste for it during his secondary school textiles lessons. </i>
</p>
<p>“It’s not something I ever really shared with my family, my twin brother is really academic and our older brother is at university to be an engineer, and I’m just here wanting to make pretty clothes. You feel really weird for that, when you’re sitting at the dinner table and your brothers are arguing about the mechanics of chemical engineering, and your only contribution is I can make a cool dress. But once my family saw my work, it just all seemed to fit into place.” Charles smiled into the camera. </p>
<p>“He’s always been really artistic. He’s annoyingly talented and doesn’t really notice it. He knows he’s good at it but he refuses to accept it because he’s a brat,” Max said, “And I know him getting to the final means he’s never going to shut up about it, but I guess that’s okay.”</p>
<p>The shot cut from showing the twins talking to the camera at home to being back in the studio, with Charles practically bent double over the machine. </p>
<p>“And you two are twins, aren’t you?” The presenter, Joe, asked, pulling up a seat beside Max as they watched Charles frantically shoving the silk through the machine whilst being sure not to crease it. </p>
<p>“He’s the baby though,” Max grinned. </p>
<p>“Only three minutes younger,” Charles flippantly interrupted, his mouth full of pins and his eyes fixed on his hands.</p>
<p>“And I’m three minutes wiser because of it, shut up.”</p>
<p>“I bet your Dads had their hands full with you two, didn’t they?” Joe asked as he laughed at the twins. </p>
<p>“It’s mainly him. He’s a brat.”</p>
<p>“If the cameras weren’t pointing at us, I’d tell Joe all the things that you get up to that Dad tells you off for,” Charles said, causing Max to blush. </p>
<p>“Do you ever stop arguing?”</p>
<p>“Even when he’s asleep he’s normally formulating a way to create another argument. You’ve not seen chaos in human form until you’ve met Charles,” Max shrugged. </p>
<p>The cameras cut away and Max was told to stand up, following a stylist downstairs who was going to style his hair whilst the judges made their rounds. </p>
<p>“Charles! How are you feeling?” Patrick, one of the judges, asked. </p>
<p>“Good,” Charles nodded, watching intently before taking his foot off the sewing machine pedal and pulling his fabric away, snipping at the loose thread and bagging it out. “Good, sorry, I was at the end of an embellishment and I needed to count the stitches.”</p>
<p>“Can we see your pattern?”</p>
<p>
  <i>For Charles’ Red Carpet Suit, he’s dressing twin brother Max in a light blue double breasted suit, complete with rainbow tulip embellishments stretching across the blazer</i>
</p>
<p>“This is quite an old-fashioned pattern but this is linen, correct?” Patrick asked, fingers touching on the fabric that Charles had just put down. </p>
<p>“Yes, so the pattern is based on a suit that my Oma made for my Dad when he and my Isä got married, and then I’m modernising it with the linen, making it a collarless silk shirt, so I’m swapping the typical fabrics around for that, and also adding the tulip embellishment,” Charles nodded. </p>
<p>“What made you pick the tulips?”</p>
<p>“My Dads adopted my twin brother and I from Holland, and tulips are the national flower there. And then I’m doing that in a rainbow ombre cascade from Max’s right shoulder down across the body and coming to rest about an inch and a half up from the curve of the blazer.”</p>
<p>“That’s going to be a lot of work,” Esme, the other judge, warned him. </p>
<p>“I’ve hand sewn 337 pieces of tiny diamante onto a bodice in about the same time, I’m sure I can do this,” Charles told them, confidence exuberating through him. </p>
<p>He could do this and he would. </p>
<p>He was a talented little shit. </p>
<p>That’s what Max called him. </p>
<p>
  <i> Charles chose to apply to the Great British Sewing Bee whilst studying for his A-Level exams. Studying Art, English Literature, French and Textiles, Charles has been balancing designing clothes and costumes for the Sewing Bee whilst also creating original patterns for school.</i>
</p>
<p>“It’s actually worked out pretty well, because I’ve been doing so much original stuff,” Charles said, “And because I’m making my own patterns a lot of the time, I’ve just been forcing my best friend, my brother or his boyfriend to be my models and it’s worked out perfectly in terms of getting the practice in.”</p>
<p>“How’s it going?” Max asked as he came back, his hair slicked back and what felt like a pound of make up on his face. </p>
<p>“Good,” Charles nodded as he grabbed Max and threw him behind the changing screen, “Take that off and stick the shirt on, I need to check the fit.”</p>
<p>Max carefully pulled the shirt on and Charles knelt down in front of him, pulling at the seams to be sure that he’d taken them in enough to fit Max without making it uncomfortable. </p>
<p>“Can you breathe?”</p>
<p>“Just,” Max nodded. </p>
<p>“Excellent, so I’m close to killing you.”</p>
<p>“Yep.”</p>
<p>“That’s how I wanted it, okay cool, take that off for me.”</p>
<p>Max carefully took it off and placed the silk shirt onto the mannequin, making sure it wasn’t creased before falling into place beside Charles. Now that he’d finished with the shirt, Charles was onto the blazer. </p>
<p>“You really had to pick something overly complicated, didn’t you?”</p>
<p>“I want to win,” Charles shrugged as he started to feed the linen into the machine. Charles looked up at Max and the twins exchanged a look, before Charles had to focus back on making sure that his seams were following the strict lines of the blazer perfectly. </p>
<p>“What lining are you doing?” Max asked. </p>
<p>“Go in that blue check bag under the table and grab it out for me. It’s the last bit of fabric in there.”</p>
<p>Max followed instruction and laughed when he pulled out the pride flag. </p>
<p>“You’re seriously putting the pride flag as your lining?”</p>
<p>“Mate, I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but we’re both pretty gay, and I’m making this as subtly gay as I can.”</p>
<p>“If you wanted subtle you shouldn’t have made the tulips rainbow.”</p>
<p>“Maxy, I never said whether I was doing what you think of as subtle or what I think of as subtle,” Charles laughed, knowing that their definitions of it were very different.</p>
<p>“Are you putting a branch and some tulips on the trousers too?”</p>
<p>“Wasn’t planning on it, why?”</p>
<p>“Just think it would look good,” Max shrugged, “But you’re the designer, you know what you’re doing.”</p>
<p>Charles fell silent again and Max simply watched him. </p>
<p>“Do me a favour and look at the honeycomb stich on the neckline of the shirt and make sure it traces down to the cuffs and also down to the hem of the shirt because I’m seriously questioning myself right now,” Charles asked a few minutes later. </p>
<p>Max climbed up and turned the mannequin, tracing his fingers over the hexagonal shapes in the same way that Charles had earlier when it had been flush around Max’s body. </p>
<p>“Yeah it’s all fine.”</p>
<p>“And it’s straight?”</p>
<p>“Straightest thing either of us could produce,” Max joked. </p>
<p>Half the reason why Charles had picked his twin brother as his model for the final challenge, a perfectly tailored made to measure outfit, was simply for those moments. When he was stressing out and needed someone to reassure him whilst also treating him completely normally and making him laugh. </p>
<p>“What did you do for the transformation challenge by the way?” Max asked. </p>
<p>“Max!” Joe shouted and Max headed over, leaving Charles to get the point of his blazer perfect. “Your brother is insane.”</p>
<p>Max ran his fingers over the creation in front of him, smiling as he realised it was so stupidly and perfectly Charles. </p>
<p>For the second challenge, Charles had been given two blankets and told to make something out of it. In true Charles fashion, the piece was <i>perfect</i>.</p>
<p>“You can’t tell him,” Joe told him, leaning into Max conspiratorially, “But I heard Esme talking to Patrick about him being scouted by the big fashion houses after this.”</p>
<p>“Yeah don’t tell him, don’t want him to get too big headed,” Max grinned, turning over his shoulder and seeing Charles running around the haberdashery, collecting buttons and threads. “He seriously made this out of two blankets?”</p>
<p>“Yep, in 90 minutes,” Joe sighed. </p>
<p>Charles had fashioned the two blankets together to make some weird hybrid coat, with over-the-top square panels stretching from the neckline down the front of the garment, faux leather binding it along the raw edges and the other blanket stripped to make tassels to tie it all together. Admittedly, it sounded quite normal, until you considered Charles’ fabric choices. </p>
<p>“That’s a picnic blanket…” Max realised, tracing his fingers over the bold red tartan before moving on to a soft, almost baby puke, green, “And that’s a baby blanket?” </p>
<p>“The things he can create are amazing,” Joe said as he nudged Max’s shoulder, “He’s really good at this.”</p>
<p>“MAX!” Charles shouted and Max headed back over with a final nod to Joe in agreement. </p>
<p>“What’s your inside seam measurement?”</p>
<p>“Er 30.5 inches,” Max supplied as Charles started folding at the cuff. </p>
<p>“I’ve changed my mind. I’m cuffing this and adding the left over fabric from the lining of the blazer onto to cuff, so that it ties both the tulips and the inside of the blazer to the trousers. I was thinking about your tulip comment and this will also help with the modernisation of it,” Charles explained once he saw Max’s befuddlement. </p>
<p>“And you’ve got enough time?”</p>
<p>“Fuck no,” Charles muttered, “But I need to do this. So whack those on for me and then I’m going to hand sew it whilst it’s attached to your leg.”</p>
<p>Max should’ve been nervous, after all his brother was about to attack his leg with a needle and thread and he honestly wouldn’t put it past Charles to just stab him instead.</p>
<p>Instead, he took a deep breath and stood as still as possible. </p>
<p>They’d already been at this for four and a half hours, just another hour to go.</p>
<p>“See now Charles is doing something very interesting,” The judges were caught saying by the cameras, standing on a platform above the sewers and looking down. “He’s making something that is obviously very emotive to him and his brother, and he’s not using traditional fabrics-”</p>
<p>“Not that he ever does. I’ve never known someone to throw in as many unique fabrics as he does,” Esme agreed. </p>
<p>“But if he doesn’t get the lining of that jacket <i>perfectly</i> symmetrical and smooth, with no bunching it’s not going to sit right. He’s not using silk, which would be the obvious choice, and now if this goes wrong, that fabric is going to bunch at the linen and make it very obvious where all the imperfections are. And with only an hour to go, it’s serious question time over whether he’s going to finish it in time or not.”</p>
<p>“He’s come first in both previous challenges, I think he’s actually one of the most successful sewers we’ve ever seen. If he doesn’t pull this off, it’s going to look atrocious and it could really catapult him down from being an obvious winner to being the runner up.”</p>
<p>“Only time will tell.” Patrick agreed. </p>
<p>“FUCK!” Charles shouted, running his hands through his hair where he was sat on the floor leaning back against his workbench. </p>
<p>Time was quick to tell. </p>
<p>“What’s wrong?” Max asked.</p>
<p>“Fucking pockets are back to front, shit fuck, ah shit what the fuck do I do?” Charles muttered, staring at the fabric in front of him. “Fuck I haven’t got time to unpick it. What do I do?”</p>
<p>“Unpick it,” Max told him, “Just unpick it. You can do it so fast, alright? You’ve done this a million times, and you’re not going to fail it now, okay?”</p>
<p>Charles looked across at Max with watery eyes, clearly upset about his fuck up. </p>
<p>“Alright,” Max sighed, smacking Charles lightly on the face but loudly enough that people noticed, “Get on with it. You’re not failing now.”</p>
<p>Charles banged his head back against the table leg and then grabbed his seam ripper, running it over the invisible pockets (that were definitely not invisible with his stupid mistake) and ripping them off. </p>
<p>“I told you, you’ve got plenty of time,” Max murmured, sitting cross legged on the floor beside Charles, “You’ve got this. It’s just the buttons, these pockets, the applique, and then the lining, alright? You can do that in fifty minutes.”</p>
<p>“What if I can’t?” Charles asked, never taking his eyes off the seams as he pulled the threads out. </p>
<p>Max leant in close so that only Charles could hear, </p>
<p>“Then I’ll fuck Dan in your bed.”</p>
<p>“No you won’t!”</p>
<p>“And you won’t fail!” Max argued. </p>
<p>“I hate you.”</p>
<p>“And that’s why you wanted me to be your model. Now get on with it, you dumb slug.”</p>
<p>Charles laughed wetly and started fixing what he done wrong, wiping his eyes and then fixing the stitching. </p>
<p>Fixing the pockets and attaching the buttons only took Charles five minutes and Max quickly tried it all on, making sure the fit was perfect. </p>
<p>“If Dan doesn’t make a sexual comment about you looking good I’m going to punch him,” Charles said as he sat back, tugging on the leg to make it sit more comfortably around Max’s foot. “Yeah I think that looks good, how does it feel?”</p>
<p>“Really good yeah, doesn’t feel too tight but it also doesn’t feel loose.”</p>
<p>“Cool, right, whip the jacket off for me,” Charles sat back at his machine and started assembling the applique tulips into an order, “Pass me that thread.”</p>
<p>Max passed him a thread and Charles wet it before sliding it through the eye of the needle, threading it up the machine and onto the spool pin. Placing the blazer jacket under the foot, Charles lined up the first tulips and pressed down on the pedal, attaching them to the blazer with practiced ease, the stitching all falling into place perfectly. He kept going, adding more tulips and connecting stems, creating a beautiful rainbow cascade to decorate the slim fit on the jacket. </p>
<p>“Five minutes, sewers! Get those suits on models!” </p>
<p>“Shit,” Charles hissed, speeding up slightly. </p>
<p>“You can do it,” Max reassured, “I promise you, you can do this.”</p>
<p>Charles flipped the switch and pulled the jacket away, dumping it in his lap and threading the needle in his fingers, praising every God on earth that someone had been blessed enough to make a rainbow spool of thread that worked so perfectly with his rainbow lining. </p>
<p>Max pulled on the shoes that he’d been made to wear, plain white converse with a small rainbow printing on the logo at his heel and under the sole. He quickly laced them together, his fingers working at the white laces and folding his trousers over them so that the rainbow cuff sat perfectly over them. </p>
<p>“Charles! Two minutes! Get that blazer on your brother!” </p>
<p>“C’mon, c’mon, c’mon,” Charles muttered, his fingers flying back and forth quicker than anything Max had ever seen before, “C’mon, we’re Räikkönen-Vettel’s, we don’t go down without a fight.” </p>
<p>Max silently pressed his hand to Charles’ shoulder as he buttoned the shirt up, twisting in the mirror and seeing the effortless way it skimmed his frame. Charles had tailored it with the honeycomb stitching along his arms and front, and also inserted well-fitting darts across the underside of his ribs to pull it in just slightly. </p>
<p>“Thirty seconds!” </p>
<p>All eyes seemed to fit onto Charles as Max pressed his fingers around the waistband of the trousers. </p>
<p>“Twenty seconds Charles!”</p>
<p>Max skimmed the pockets of the trousers.</p>
<p>“Ten seconds Charles!”</p>
<p>Charles jumped up and Max dragged the jacket on, Charles adjusting it with the final few stitches whilst Max buttoned it up, their arms tying but working perfectly together in the way that only the twins could. </p>
<p>“And that’s your time!” Joe said, “That is the end of your final made-to-measure challenge, and the final time you have sewn for Patrick and Esme. Sewers, down your needles.”</p>
<p>Charles’ eyes dropped shut and he fell forward onto Max’s shoulder, pressing his face into Max’s shoulder. </p>
<p>“It’s over,” Max murmured, cradling Charles close, “And you created something beautiful.”</p>
<p>“It’s over.”</p>
<p>The other two sewers in the final, Heather and Amara, came over to the twins and wrapped the two of them up in their arms. </p>
<p>Charles was the youngest out of the three by far, and yet hugged in their arms, with their love and warmth and praise whispering in his ears, he knew he’d done it. </p>
<p>He’d put everything into that outfit, and Max looked <i>fucking good</i>. </p>
<p>Charles had given it his everything. </p>
<p>It was time to be proud.</p>
<p>“It’s time to start believing in yourself,” Heather whispered in his ear.</p>
<p>“We did it,” Charles murmured, stepping away from Max and looking at the two ladies with tears cascading down his cheeks. </p>
<p>“Yes we did, darling,” Amara told him as she smoothed his hair back up into his bandana in an overly maternal gesture. </p>
<p>It was over. </p>
<p>Ten weeks of hard work. </p>
<p>Ten weeks of hiding this from everyone but his parents, brothers, Dan and Charlotte. </p>
<p>Ten weeks of crying and thinking he wasn’t good enough. </p>
<p>But he was.</p>
<p>Charles had won five of the ten weeks. </p>
<p>He’d never had a bad week. </p>
<p>He’d always come first or second. </p>
<p>Because he was good enough. </p>
<p>And now, as he watched his brother spin in languid circles, admiring the curve of the blazer around his waist, he knew it was enough. </p>
<p>His brother was smiling. </p>
<p>Charles could smile. </p>
<p>He’d given it his all. </p>
<p>He could only hope that the judges thought he’d done enough too. </p>
<p>They were ushered away so that the place could be cleaned up and readied for judging, and as Charles watched Max walk in that suit, he knew his brother was comfortable. </p>
<p>Max hated wearing suits, and yet he’d done this for Charles. Had <i>trusted</i> Charles to make something that didn’t make him look like shit. </p>
<p>And Charles didn’t think he had. </p>
<p>The pale duck-egg blue colour brought out the rich turquoise of Max’s eyes, offset beautifully against the rigid messiness of his dirty blonde hair. </p>
<p>He looked good. </p>
<p>Max looked happy. </p>
<p>The anxious wait for judging didn’t last too long, but Charles was dragged back in front of the camera before they could go back for judging. </p>
<p>“Do I think I could win? If you’d have asked me earlier, I’d have said ‘of course, yeah’, and I’d have laughed and grinned, but I would’ve been lying. I tell myself I can win because I’m scared of letting people down. But I don’t think I have. I think I’ve done everything right. And,” Charles took in a deep breath as his bottom lip wobbled with emotions, “And no matter what, what the judges say, I’ve made my brother smile. I brought my brother into my world and showed him what I love, and I’ve already won. That’s enough of a prize for me. I think I have done enough now.”</p>
<p>Charles rubbed at his eyes and walked off camera, knowing it was still rolling but he couldn’t find it in him to care. </p>
<p>~</p>
<p>Watching Max walk in front of them, a content smile on his face as he looked proudly at Charles, Charles wanted nothing more than to reach out and take Max’s hand in his. </p>
<p>They’d come into this world together. </p>
<p>They’d supported each other through everything. </p>
<p>They were going to win this damn competition together. </p>
<p>“I honestly don’t know where to start, Charles,” Patrick said, circling Max and looking at him with pure astonishment, “I honestly wasn’t expecting you to finish on time. You set yourself a monumental task with this, and when I saw you changing your plans, I did worry that you wouldn’t finish it on time, but you have created the most <i>stunning</i> suit. It’s so perfectly tailored, the shoulders are sitting at perfect points on Max’s shoulders, you’ve got the T-shape of bringing the broadness of the shoulders down to perfect points on Max’s wrists spot on. The collar of both the shirt and the blazer are sitting flush around his neck, it’s just perfection.”</p>
<p>“And I really love how you’ve done this,” Esme cut in, bringing her hand across Max’s front, “The applique is absolutely perfect, you’ve not got a single bit of puckering, it’s perfectly flat and not a single thread loose. And I especially love how you’ve modernised this otherwise quite grown up suit for a younger man. Adding the rolled cuffs in the matching lining,” Esme opened the jacket to see the matching pride material sewn perfectly looking back at her, “It just fits so perfectly. It’s not tight, it’s not stretching, it’s perfect.”</p>
<p>“You should be very proud of yourself, you are a very talented young man.” Patrick nodded, reaching out to shake Charles’ hand. </p>
<p>“I am,” Charles nodded, looking at Max for a moment before looking back at Patrick, “I’m proud.”</p>
<p>“You should be.”</p>
<p>Charles sat back down and Max took Charles’ hand under the table, linking their pinkie fingers together the way they used to as little kids. </p>
<p>A silent reminder</p>
<p>
  <i>I’ll always be by your side</i>
</p>
<p>He barely heard the judges’ comments of Heather and Amara’s suits, too busy dealing with the pure elation that Patrick Grant, the man behind so many of Saville Rows’ most amazing suits, thought Charles was talented. </p>
<p>He felt tears prick at his eyes and Charles dropped his chin onto his chest. </p>
<p>Whether he won or lost, he’d done something. </p>
<p>He’d proved that he was enough. </p>
<p>And frankly, that was enough of a prize for him. </p>
<p>~~~~</p>
<p>“You are such a talented kid,” Sebastian said the second that he was allowed to see him, all the family and friends and past contestants coming into the loft to watch who was presented with the honour of winning <i>The Great British Sewing Bee</i>. </p>
<p>Charles couldn’t say anything as Sebastian pressed him to his front, pressing Charles’ face into his shoulder as Charles cried silently. </p>
<p>“I did it, Dad.”</p>
<p>“You did it, baby,” Seb told him, pulling away to cradle Charles’ jaw in his hands and kiss his forehead, “We always knew you could. You’re our little winner.”</p>
<p>“We don’t know if I’ve won, Dad,” Charles said. </p>
<p>“You won in my heart, darling. You won in everyone’s hearts. You are amazing.”</p>
<p>“What if I don’t win?”</p>
<p>“Remember when I slapped you earlier?” Max said, coming up beside them and nudging Charles, his fingers tied with Dan, “I will punch you this time.”</p>
<p>“I might not win.”</p>
<p>“You will,” Dan said with all the confidence of someone that already knew, “You have to win. You’re annoying.”</p>
<p>“How does me being annoying mean I have to win?”</p>
<p>“It’s always the annoying one that wins,” Dan shrugged.</p>
<p>“He’s right,” Max agreed, as though it was something that everyone knew. </p>
<p>“You two are the worst,” Charles rolled his eyes, but then wandered off to go and talk to Heather’s family, seeing her waving at him. </p>
<p>It didn’t take long before Joe was poking his head out and leading the judges in. The three contestants stepped up to the middle, Charles in the middle of them, a good four or five inches taller than them both, but with the way they were clutching onto his hands, it was still obvious who the adults were. </p>
<p>It definitely wasn’t Charles. </p>
<p>“The judges said this has been one of the most talented years that we’ve ever seen. The competition has been so fiercely intense, and it is a great honour for me to reveal that the winner of The Great British Sewing Bee, is…”</p>
<p>There was a dramatic pause as the cameras moved to capture their expressions. </p>
<p>Part of Charles wanted to break of the ladies holds, to run to his Dads and jump into their arms and be protected. He couldn’t lose if he couldn’t hear. </p>
<p><i> “You’re a Räikkönen-Vettel, we don’t go down without a fight”</i> echoed in his head. </p>
<p>Instead Charles took a deep breath and straightened his shoulders, standing up a bit straighter as he stared at Joe and the judges. </p>
<p>“Charles,” Joe grinned. </p>
<p>Charles what?</p>
<p>Wait</p>
<p>OH</p>
<p>CHARLES</p>
<p>Charles as in he’s the one who just won. </p>
<p>“What?” Charles asked, his hands shaking as he took the trophy into his hands. </p>
<p>“You won,” Joe smiled, cupping his jaw and smiling at him, “You won.”</p>
<p>“Are you sure?”</p>
<p>“He’s sure,” Patrick told him, pulling Charles into a hug, “You won. You’re amazing, Charles.”</p>
<p>Nah</p>
<p>Charles was almost sure they were lying to him</p>
<p>“Really?”</p>
<p>“You’re holding the trophy,” Esme smiled as he bent to hug her.</p>
<p>“This isn’t real.”</p>
<p>It was only when he turned around and saw his Dad in tears, Max clutching Dan’s hand to his mouth and his knuckles white from how hard he was holding Dan, his Isä smiling proudly and Valtteri smirking at him that it hit him</p>
<p>“I won…” Charles whispered, looking down at the trophy in his hands before looking back up at his Dad, “I won.”</p>
<p>Sebastian smiled and nodded. </p>
<p>“You did baby.”</p>
<p>Charles ran at him, jumping straight into his arms and wrapping his arms and legs around him like he was four years old again and being told he’d won the jackpot of getting the parents that every kid wanted. </p>
<p>Clutching onto him tightly, Charles sobbed into Seb’s shoulder as Seb slowly rocked him, Kimi rubbing his back as Max screamed in his ear. </p>
<p>This was real.</p>
<p>He was a winner</p>
<p>He was good enough</p>
<p>No one ever thought Charles would amount to much</p>
<p>He was always destined to be the school slut, the one who slept around and made mistakes and got into fights. He failed exams and couldn’t even understand a third of the things his brothers talked about sometimes.</p>
<p>But he would amount to something.</p>
<p>It was just in a different field to what most people expected. </p>
<p>“I won,” Charles whispered, not sure what else to say or how else to process it, but he had. </p>
<p>Because he was good enough.</p>
<p>He was never going to do things the normal way, never going to be academic like his brothers, but none of that mattered. </p>
<p>He didn’t have to be like his brothers anymore. </p>
<p>And they didn’t have to be like him. </p>
<p>It was okay to be different. </p>
<p>And it was okay to be him. </p>
<p>Frankly, Charles quite liked the person he’d become.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>honestly I spent a long time debating whether I was just gonna scrap this and keep it personal but eh I like it so y'all can have it too</p>
<p>kudos, comments &amp; feedback always greatly appreciated💙</p>
<p>Tumblr is at 3303andmore if you wanna scream at me - im still on a Tumblr hiatus bc I just Am Not Vibing with it right now my hens but I do pop in every now and again just to see if there's anything pressing so feel free to just yeet at me over there if you need to</p></blockquote></div></div>
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